Disclaimer: This episode made me wish I owned this show, but alas, I do not.

Author's Note: So I looked up how long it takes to drive from Santa Fe to Austin, and damn. That's one long drive. How did Haibach think he was keeping Rigsby and Jane under control for 11 hours? They had to have made a pit stop, right? Or two? How did that work? And how did the FBI not find the car in all that time? These questions are not answered in this story. I figured Jane and Lisbon needed to get some things cleared up, and a long car ride is a good time to do that. This will be a multi-chapter, though I hope not a long one!

Chapter One: Jane

As we walk out of the hospital, I'm a little amused and a lot worried that Lisbon has now decided she is a fair judge of my sincerity. I wonder what she's basing that on? True, I've tried to be less opaque with her since our reunion, but she tends to err on the side of "Jane is a lying bastard who wouldn't know the truth if it walked up and slapped him." Just like she's doing now.

I am actually sorry I scared her. I'm always sorry. The problem is that Lisbon's definition of being sorry for something includes an implied promise never to do it again. Mine doesn't. I can be sorry for scaring her while still believing I did the right thing and admitting I'd do it again in a similar situation.

I reach into my pocket for the keys to the borrowed car and glance at her. Yes, this particular road trip, like so many others, will be much more pleasant if I let her drive. "Here." I toss the keys to her, and she catches them expertly.

"Tired of driving?" she asks.

"Yeah." Tired, period. I need my nap. It's a long damn way from Austin to here, but at least Lisbon will be much better company than Haibach. Even if she's grumpy.

She frowns a little as we reach the car. "This thing is technically stolen. We should…."

I feel a wave of weariness wash over me at the thought of having to talk her out of whatever legal torture she is devising. "I was planning to drive it back, give it a good wash and a full tank of gas, and turn it over to the car company with copious charming apologies."

Lisbon eyes me like I'm something she found growing in her refrigerator. "And you think that'll keep them from having you arrested and suing the FBI? Do you have any idea how many crimes you committed?"

"Meh. In for a penny, in for a pound." I don't regret a moment of it, either. Well, maybe the part where Haibach nearly cut my fingers off. What is it with psychopaths and my fingers? Do they teach that in psychopath school? Though I can vouch that it is an extremely effective way of reducing your captive to a state of thoughtless, primitive terror.

"And have you taken into account that if they insist you be arrested, I'll be the closest law enforcement officer available?" she complains, opening the car door. "If I have to arrest you, there will be unnecessary force involved."

Oh, Lisbon. If only that were as much fun as the caveman part of my brain just made it sound. "Lisbon," I chide her as we get in, "have a little faith. I have my apology all prepared."

"Good," she grumbles. "Because Abbott told me to clean this mess up, preferably without criminal charges or lawsuits."

Ah, that's why she's so grumpy. Abbott is punishing her for my crimes. I thought we were done with this kind of crap, and she probably did too. "He thought you were involved?"

"I told him I wasn't, but I'm not sure he believed me. At least not until Cho decided to say that we would have helped if we'd been asked to." She applies herself to backing out of the parking space, and I look out the window, thinking.

Obviously, this is the crux of the problem. She feels left out. Cho must have, too, but his expectations of me are lower. He only expected me to do my utmost for Rigsby and Grace, and since I did that and got the desired result, he's not going to quibble with my methods. Lisbon, however, will. Because in her heart, we're still a team, and she's still our leader. She's always going to feel protective of us, no matter where we go or what we do. It's heartwarming, really, except at moments like this when she feels I've interfered with that.

"You know why we didn't," I say, though I'm far from sure she's gotten there yet, or will admit it if she has. Rigsby and I never even discussed asking for help, both taking it for granted that we wouldn't endanger the careers of our favorite FBI agents if we could help it.

"Plausible deniability," Lisbon huffs, making it sound like an obscenity.

"Yes. Because there is no way I'm going to serve out my term of indenture at the FBI without you and Cho to brighten my days." I shudder at the thought.

"We wouldn't have turned you in," she says, sounding a little hurt.

"Lisbon," I sigh. "That wasn't what we were worried about. But are you honestly telling me you would have, with a clear conscience, connived at assault, grand theft auto, kidnapping, and whatever else is on that list of charges you've compiled in your head?"

"Maybe we could have thought of a better way." She's gone all stubborn on me now. It will take some work to overcome that.

"Not a legal one. You know that. Haibach had us right where he wanted us. We had to force him to make a new plan. If we'd played by the rules, we'd be in the morgue of that hospital right now weeping over Grace's corpse."

Lisbon sucks in a sharp breath, and I'm instantly very, very sorry I put that image in her head. I cast around for something to say to make it better. "But Haibach is dead, and Grace and Rigsby are going home to their kids and their nice, safe civilian lives. That's a major win, Lisbon."

"Of course it is," she says softly. Then she glances quickly at me. "Why did he change pattern? Why kidnap Grace instead of just kill her in her hotel room?"

"Because he wanted to outsmart us, and for us to know he'd done it. This was aimed at me."

"Yeah, right," she scoffs. "It's always about you, isn't it?"

"Haibach said it himself, Lisbon. In the car. His lawyer was talking about how much money she could milk out of the FBI for him, and he said he didn't care as long as I suffered." I pause, hating the bastard all over again. Nobody is ever going to make me suffer by killing the people I care about again if I can help it. I never planned for Haibach to make it out alive. We didn't talk about it but I'm sure Rigsby felt the same. He was the one whose baby girl was shot at when she should have been safe in his arms.

"Oh." Lisbon is quiet for a while, rethinking things. I know that look. She's collating information, seeing the connections, forming a theory. I love how her mind works, all neat and tidy, even if I sometimes yield to the temptation to mess up her process. "That's why you went crazy. It was Red John all over again for you, wasn't it?"

"Too close for comfort." I don't want to think about this anymore. "And I take exception to the word 'crazy.' You never really thought I was crazy. You knew all along I wasn't going to stop at anything to save Grace. You had to know there was a plan."

"Yeah," she sighs. "But I figured it was a stupid one. And I was right."

"Can a plan be stupid if it worked?" I ask, though I know exactly where she stands on this issue. It's come up before. Repeatedly.

"Yes. It can be stupid because it's risky. A gamble."

"But you've always known I'm a gambler." But she keeps expecting me to walk away from the table, collect my winnings, and—what? Invest them in mutual funds? That would require a total personality transplant, and she knows it. So the only reason she can still be holding on to this hope despite the mounting evidence that it's never going to happen is because she wants it so badly.

Oh, Lisbon. My dreamer. I'd make those dreams come true if I had the slightest hope I wouldn't break her heart once and for all. I can't be that stable, normal man she apparently wants. I might manage to do it for a while, but sooner or later I'd be back out there taking risks and pissing people off. And she'd feel betrayed.

I had dreams of my own, back in Venezuela. Dreams that she'd come find me and we'd live out our indolent lives on the beach. Or that I'd find a way back to her and go back to the life we had before, catching bad guys and flirting a little when we felt playful. But Lisbon would be the one in need of a total personality transplant before the first could ever happen, and apparently neither of us is quite satisfied with the new status quo we've created. I don't know where to go from here. I just know I can't afford to drive her away.

Though it's interesting that Rigsby and Grace had ideas about where we should go. It makes me feel a little hopeful, actually. Two people who know us both reasonably well think it's not absolutely insane that Lisbon and I could make a go of it. We just both have to let go of some of our dreams, I think.

I have no idea if Lisbon is willing to do that.

"I hoped," she says, very quietly. Then she stops, reconsidering, and clears her throat. After a minute she gives a little sigh and continues, "I hoped after Red John was gone that you wouldn't be so careless what you staked."

Playing with house money, I said to Haibach. And it's true; I have very little to lose, compared to the man I used to be. I've made it that way on purpose. But I don't have nothing to lose, like I told him. I have Lisbon to lose. And I'm not going to. I'll cheat every way I know to avoid that. I know the man I am without her, and I much prefer the man I am with her.

Lisbon decides I'm not going to respond and continues, "I was in the helicopter, Jane. I saw you lying on the ground, not moving. I thought—" She breaks off, but not before I hear the echoes of terror and despair in her voice. "I was scared for you," she whispers after a moment.

"I'm sorry, Lisbon. I didn't mean to scare you. I was just...recovering." I think about how the scene must have looked from above. Yes, she might well have thought I was a corpse, lying there in the snow. She wouldn't have been able to see me breathing, might not have seen my arms move. I imagine if our positions had been reversed, I would have gone quietly insane.

"Yeah, well." She tries to sound casual, but there's still a thickness to her voice that breaks my heart a little. "That's the thing, Jane. You never mean to scare me, but you keep doing it. You'll always keep doing it. Because there's always something more important than me."

"No!" I stare at her in consternation. "That's not—"

"Oh, please," she says impatiently. "I understood it when it was Red John. You told me nothing was more important than getting him, and you proved it over and over again. I always knew that even when it seemed like you were making an effort to act like my partner, you were still always going to put him first. Someday you were going to get him, and then you'd be gone. I always knew that. Unfortunately that didn't make it easier to take when it happened."

Hearing Lisbon's version of our time together, I'm struck by how bleak it seems. I never stopped to think about what it looked like from her perspective. But she made sacrifices, stuck by me through rough times, and defended and protected me all in the knowledge that her reward would be to lose me in the end. I tried to apologize for my more egregious actions in my letters, but I know I only scratched the surface. I open my mouth to apologize, but Lisbon hasn't finished yet.

"I know getting me this job was supposed to make it up to me, and I'm grateful."

I have to interrupt. "So you see that I had to make sure you wouldn't lose it."

"But I wish," she says, casting me a baleful look, "that you would stop making decisions for me."

We're back to that, I realize with a sigh.

"Maybe," she adds, "I should give you a taste of your own medicine. Run off without any word to you of where I'm going, make major career decisions for you, shut you out of things I think are too dangerous and make sure you can't track me down until it's almost too late."

I take a horrifying moment to envision this. I've had tastes of it before, when she ran off on her own and ended up with a smiley painted on her lovely face. That was the longest night of my life. "Point taken, Lisbon. Next time I'm about to do something that may get me thrown in jail, I'll give you the opportunity to throw your career away if you so choose." But I won't make a habit of it. Lisbon wouldn't last a week in prison. "I'm sure you'll enjoy finding a second career. Maybe go a completely different route, like exotic dancer."

She gives an inelegant snort, which I find endearing. "Yeah, right. Like anybody'd pay to see me dance."

"I would," I say, grinning. Oh yes. And it wouldn't be singles I'd be slipping in her G-string.

"Of course you would," she says. "You'd find it amusing, huh?"

"That's not the word I'd use. Though that word also begins with an A."

Lisbon blinks rapidly. If she weren't driving the car, she'd be seriously considering hurling herself out of it, I bet. I may have gone a bit far; I don't like how her fingers have turned white gripping the steering wheel. I fear a counterattack is imminent.

"I hate it when you do that," she growls. "You think I don't know what you're up to? It's insulting that you flirt with me to change the subject. Stop it."

Flirting with Lisbon is one of the finer pleasures of life. I'm not prepared to give it up. "You never used to mind," I protest.

"That was before you used it to leave me stranded by the roadside," she says bitterly. "Knock it off. I'm never falling for that again."

"I meant every word I said to you," I say fiercely. I believed I would never see her again. I wouldn't leave her with lies.

"Whatever." Her jaw tightens. This is about to get ugly. "So. Since I'm now in charge of your life, when are you going to take your ring off, Jane? Or are you planning on a lifetime of seclusion and celibacy? Maybe just sleep with a psychopath's mistress once a decade or so?"

Ouch. That was nasty. I try to swallow down the hurt and anger, because it won't do any good to fight with her about this. "I've been thinking about it," I say. "A lot. I just...start to panic when I take it off. I've been trying to figure out why."

Lisbon's anger evaporates. The fastest way to disarm her is honesty. "I...I'm sorry, Jane," she says in a small voice. "I had no right to say that to you. Please forget I did."

"You can say anything to me, Lisbon," I tell her. "I think I need to say this, anyway. To you. We just don't have a lot of time to talk these days."

"I know. I can't blame Fischer for wanting to keep an eye on you in the field, but I kind of miss it." One side of her mouth quirks up. "Until she comes back and tells me what you did this time. Then I'm glad I don't have to follow you around apologizing."

"Well, I definitely miss you in the field. Fischer is much slower to take my cues. And she's so awkward sometimes. It gets people's guard up, which makes my job harder."

"I'm sure she'll get better with practice," Lisbon says. "But you wanted to tell me something?" Her voice has that lovely gentleness I associate with moments of comfort.

"I don't...necessarily know who I am." Talking about myself is something I've always avoided. It's very difficult. "When I was a boy, I was Alex's son. Then I was Angela's boyfriend and then husband. Then Charlotte's father. When I wasn't those things, I was just the showman. An empty shell. And suddenly that was all there was. The ring...is a reminder of who I was when I liked myself."

"Oh, Jane," Lisbon says. Her voice is rich with sympathy.

"For a while there, I could think of myself as your consultant, or even your partner. But now...I don't know who I am. I'm not your consultant, or your partner, anymore."

"How about my friend?" Lisbon suggests, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I'd be honored to be your friend," I tell her, touched. "But I'm not sure I deserve the title."

"Of course you do. Maybe you're not perfect, but nobody is."

"Friends hang out together apart from work," I point out.

"We could do that."

Despite my best effort, I yawn. Lisbon notices, and because we've ventured into uncomfortably emotional territory, she says, "I'm good to drive for a few hours if you want to grab a nap."

"Thanks. Wake me up if you get tired." I lean back and close my eyes, grateful to be with her. We still have a lot of baggage between us, but we've made a start. And we have a long drive ahead of us.